About 10 years ago I bought an old Proteus frame from a swap meet in Maryland. It's a pretty cool old frame--Reynolds 531 tubing, nice lugs with cut outs, Campy dropouts, etc. I think I had around $40 for it and built it up as a beater. I stripped it down several years ago to use the parts for other projects and it's been sitting in my garage ever since. Recently I got the itch to refinish it. Haven't decided yet whether to spray it myself or have it done professionally, but this weekend I finally got around to stripping the paint off. Here's the before pic:
To get all the paint off, I used this stuff called "Jasco."
This is some toxic stuff...I think went through about 10 pairs of latex gloves--it just eats through everything. Got some nice chemical burns from it too...if I do this again def. go with some thick rubber gloves! It eats through the paint pretty nice and bubbles it all up so you can scrape it off with steel wool or a wire brush.
The tough part is all the nooks and crannies around the lugs--especially the bottom bracket shell. It took a lot longer than I expected--probably 2-3 hours total to get it to the point where I think it's ready for primer.
Some of the after pics:
The more I got everything cleaned up, the more I realized this frame is pretty well built. The brazing seems very clean. I did find a ding on the seat tube that had been filled in with Bondo, however. The Jasco ate through the Bondo while i was stripping the paint. So I'll have to fill it back in before I paint it. It's small so hopefully it won't be big deal.
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